China Sets November for Key Economic Meeting for Communist Party

China’s Communist Party set a key
meeting on economic policy for November, providing a focus for
investors seeking details on how the leadership will support a
slowing economy.

The Beijing plenary meeting of the party’s Central
Committee, which includes President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, government ministers and the heads of the biggest
state-owned enterprises and banks, will discuss deepening
reforms, according to a report last night from the state-run
Xinhua News Agency.

The November gathering will be the third full meeting of
the current Central Committee. It was at such a third plenum in
late 1978 that Deng Xiaoping and his allies inaugurated a series
of economic reforms that began to open up China to foreign
investment and loosen state controls over the economy.

“We expect a comprehensive list of reforms to be
provided,” Zhang Zhiwei, chief China economist at Nomura
Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong, said in a note today. The changes
will be “critically important for the economic outlook,” Zhang
said.

China’s leadership has already said that it will rely on
forces such as urbanization to sustain expansion in coming years
as the population ages and higher wages erode manufacturers’
global competitiveness. Statements from the November meeting may
flesh out details, as investors look for clues on reforms, such
as to the household-registration, or hukou, system which impedes
labor mobility.

The Xinhua report cited a statement from the Communist
Party’s Political Bureau following a meeting yesterday. The body
of the 25 top party officials also approved a five-year plan
through 2017 for improving anti-corruption efforts, Xinhua said,
one day after the graft trial of ousted Politburo member Bo Xilai concluded with prosecutors calling for a severe
punishment.

Big shifts in economic policy must be ratified by the
Central Committee, a group of about 200 people picked every five
years by a party congress and from whose ranks come the top
civilian and military officials in China.